


Chasing What Could Have Been

by DeceitfulHonesty



Series: Almost the Right Partner [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Set after Age of Ultron, Slow Dancing, Steggy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 06:14:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4510926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeceitfulHonesty/pseuds/DeceitfulHonesty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a few weeks of dance practice with Natasha, Steve finally gets up the courage to ask Peggy for their dance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chasing What Could Have Been

    “You sure you don’t want to try something faster? Or maybe more complicated?” Natasha asked.

  
    “You realize she’s 94, right?” Steve replied.

  
    “Fine, you want to try with me standing on your feet again?”

  
    Steve nodded. It had been about three weeks since he had bit the bullet and asked Natasha for dancing lessons (well, ‘asked’ is a loose interpretation. Steve mentioned his lack of experience and Natasha told him, “I’m giving you lessons. Be in the training room at 3 am sharp” and walked out before he could protest). He was starting to get good. He reigned Natasha in from trying to teach him the fancy stuff and had managed not to step on her feet at all this week. He just wanted it to be perfect.

  
    “I would advise you not dip her, then. She could probably still kick your ass if you break her back,” Natasha smirked.

  
    Steve rolled his eyes, “Wasn’t planning on it, but thanks for the advice.”

  
    The song they had been swaying to started to fade out. “Well, it’s almost 5, so the rest of the team will be getting up shortly. Also, you probably have to go annoy Sam on his morning run,” Natasha said, dropping her hand from Steve’s shoulder.

  
    “Maybe we should go through it one more time? Just to be safe,” Steve said.

  
    Natasha chuckled, “You’ve done it perfectly the past fifty times.” She patted him on the arm, “You’ll do fine, Steve. And I’m pretty sure she won’t care either way.”

  
    Steve sighed and followed her out of the training room. They quickly went their separate ways to not rouse any suspicion from their team. Somehow, they had managed to keep their early morning dance lessons a secret from the rest of the team. Steve knew he would never hear the end of it if Tony found out.

  
    Steve began to go through his morning ritual, grabbing a piece of toast before going out for his run. Sam had started running earlier and earlier every morning, trying to get a head start on Steve, yet Steve always caught up and then lapped him twelve times.

  
    Steve still visited Peggy every few days at the nursing home. Whenever his mission schedule allowed and he could borrow the quinjet, he flew down to D.C. and stayed with Peggy for a few hours. He was on a first name basis with most of the nurses and they let him know if today was a ‘good day’ or a ‘bad day.’ Sometimes, Steve didn’t know if the good days or bad days were worse.

  
    Today, he walked into the front door of the nursing home with a large cardboard box propped up on his shoulder. He signed in with the security guard at the front desk and let him check the contents of the box before heading down the familiar hallway.

  
    Right as he got to Peggy’s door, her nurse slipped out into the hallway. Jenny, Steve remembered, Peggy really liked this one. Jenny saw Steve and gave him a smile and a thumbs up before jotting something down on her chart and heading down the hall.

  
    Steve cracked the door open slowly. Peggy was propped up in bed, scowling at the TV and what appeared to be a soap opera. Steve lightly knocked on the doorframe to alert her to his presence.

  
    Her gaze darted from the TV to Steve, a smile breaking out across her face, “Steve. You came to see me again?” Steve let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.

  
    “Of course,” he said. He gestured to the TV and asked, “What are you watching?”

  
    Peggy rolled her eyes, “I haven’t the foggiest, but in the course of this episode, this man has died, come back as a ghost to haunt his ex-wife, and then somehow possessed his twin brother’s body. Also, I’m sure none of these women are employed. All they’ve done is drink wine and cry to their husbands. Honestly, what passes for entertainment these days in appalling,” she ranted.

  
    Steve couldn’t help his smile. He could almost convince himself that everything was the same as it had been before he went under. Except if it was like before, Peggy wouldn’t be lying in a bed talking to him. She’d probably be snapping at his heels, telling him to get back to work, while playfully smirking at him.

  
    “Are you going to come in and sit, or just stand there with that box?” Peggy asked. Steve shifted the box into one hand and closed the door behind him quietly.

  
    “I brought you a present,” Steve said.

  
    Peggy tutted, “You don’t have to keep bringing me things, you know. I hardly have the space for my own things.”

  
    “I know, but you’ll like this one. And I’ll take it with me when I leave if you want me to,” Steve responded. He pulled out contents of the cardboard box and placed it on the nightstand beside the bed. It was a small wooden box with a lid and some decorative engraving on the front panel. Steve opened up the lid to reveal the turntable with a record positioned on it. “I had to go to seven different antique malls to find this.”

  
    Peggy scoffed, “And you were probably charged far too much for it. Can you believe how much people want these day for the things we had when we were young?” They both chuckled, “But what is this for, Steve? I’m sure you have one of those iPod things to play music on.”

  
    Steve laughed, “I’m surprised you know what an iPod is. I had to look it up.”

  
    “Well, unlike you, I have been around for the evolution of technology,” Peggy sassed back. Although it was meant as a joke, it still stung. Peggy must have noticed, “I’m sorry, Steve, I didn’t—”

  
    “S’okay. It’s not your fault I haven’t been around.”

  
    “Your right. It’s entirely yours, you self-sacrificing arse,” Peggy jokingly swatted his arm as he sat down in the chair beside her bed, “You haven’t answered my question: Why did you spend an absurd amount of time searching for something I’m sure my grandchildren have in their basements?”

  
    Steve was suddenly very self-conscious, “I—uh, well. I thought, maybe, if you don’t mind—er, if you want to I guess, I could—we could, maybe—”

  
    “For God’s sake, Steve spit it out. I’m not getting any younger,” Peggy demanded.

  
    Steve took a deep breath, “I—I thought, maybe, we could finally have our dance?” Steve was half tempted to squeeze his eyes shut, as if that would save him. The long pause that followed his confession was going to kill him.

  
    “I—I’d like that very much. Although I’m not sure my nurses will like it,” Peggy replied.

  
    A huge grin broke out across Steve’s face, “I’ll talk them around.”

  
    Peggy started laughing, a sound that made Steve’s heart soar, “Captain Bloody America, defeated Hydra, survived a plane crash in the Arctic, and stopped an army of robots, still can’t ask a girl to dance properly.”

  
    Steve huffed a laugh and his eyes met Peggy’s. Their short moment was interrupted by Steve’s phone loudly beeping from his pocket, indicating a text:

  
    _Natasha: Urgent mission. Possible Hydra base. Coordinates sent to your plane, meet you there. Video briefing in 20. Don’t be late :P_  
  

  Steve sighed heavily, half tempted to delete the message and pretend he never got it.

  
    “Duty calls?” Peggy asked. Steve smiled sadly, “Go save the world, Steve. We’ve waited 70 years, I think we can wait a few more days.”

  
    “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Steve said and gave Peggy a quick kiss on the forehead. As he left, he noticed Peggy reach over to turn on the record player.  


* * *

  
    The mission turned out to be relatively uneventful. The intel they had gathered on the location turned out to be good: it was a Hydra base, just not a well-manned one. No high-ranking officers of Hydra were present or seemed to have ever been to this particular base. They did manage to hack into their database and, hopefully, get some leads on other bases. The team dropped the hard drive back at the base and Natasha agreed to cover for Steve so he could skip debriefing.

  
    He took the fastest shower of his life, put on a nice suit, and plugged the familiar coordinates in D.C. into the quinjet.

  
    Steve stopped by a small flower shop on the way to the nursing home. He’d never asked Peggy what her favorite flowers were, so he settled on the biggest bouquet of red and orange flowers he could find, paid the cashier, and hopped back into the rental car, his legs bouncing the entire time with both nervousness and excitement.

  
    The car was barely in park before he jumped out and marched to the front door. Steve hastily scratched his name on the sign in sheet, hoping since the guard was currently sleeping, he could sign in properly on his way out.

  
    Steve couldn’t help the bounce in his step as he sauntered down the hallway. All his practice was finally going to pay off. He made it to Peggy’s door and knocked lightly before swinging it open.

  
    The bed was empty, the blankets pulled up and tucked under the edges, perfectly smooth and untouched.

  
    Steve was perplexed. Not that Peggy had many belongings in the room, but the few she had previously were no longer there. The only personal item left was the record player Steve had brought last time.

  
    He looked up and down the hallway before his eyes landed on a familiar nurse walking in down the hall. He jogged over and tapped her on the shoulder, “Hey, uh Karen, right? Um, where’s—”

  
    Karen’s eyes went wide, “Didn’t you get a call? She...passed away this morning,” she started shuffling through some paperwork on her clipboard, “I thought we had notified all her family.”

  
    Steve was reeling, “I—um, not family. Just a friend.”

  
    Karen placed a hand on his shoulder with a sad smile, “I’m so sorry. I can find out when the service is if you’d like.”

  
    Steve just nodded and turned back to the room. He sat on the uncomfortable chair beside the bed, staring around the empty room. Karen came back at some point and slipped him a piece of paper with a date and location on it and closed the door behind her on the way out, slipping the Do Not Disturb tag on the outside handle.

  
    Steve felt numb. He had expected that everyone he knew would be gone when he woke up from the ice, but Peggy had still been there. He got his hopes up that they could make up some lost time the last few times he had seen her. Now she was truly gone, and Steve couldn’t process it.

  
    He sat there far too long in the empty room that had once been so nostalgic and now just looked far too sterile. He turned on the record player, just to fill the echoing silence in his mind, but after a few minutes, he couldn't bear to hear it anymore. He laid the bouquet gingerly on the pillow. Hopefully one of the nurses could send them to the family. He finally rose from the chair and stalked out of the room, dropping the record player in the trash can as he left.

* * *

  
    Wanda was lurched out of her meditation by a persistent knock on her door. She checked her phone, expecting to see a missed message telling her about training or dinner, but there was nothing. She shuffled to the door, still bleary-eyed, and cracked it open.

  
    She didn’t know who she was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t Steve Rogers dressed in a nice suit with his tie undone and tear tracks staining his cheeks. Before she could ask anything he spoke up.

  
    “I need a favor.”

* * *

  
  
    He laid for an hour with his head in Wanda’s lap, red light swirling around his head, not speaking. Wanda knew exactly which memory he wanted to see without much prompting and played it over and over. Occasionally, he would ask for some slight changes, but for the most part he sat there quietly, letting her work, while tears formed in the corners of his eyes.

  
    “You know, this really isn’t healthy,” she remarked.

  
    Steve opened his eyes to look at her, “I know. Just...one more time?”

  
    Wanda sighed, “Just once more. _It’s Been A Long, Long, Time_?” Steve nodded and they slipped back into silence.

**Author's Note:**

> That nasty little voice in my head said "You know what would be reeeally heartbreaking? You should totally do it."  
> Also, this is the first really emotional thing I've written so any advice on how to improve is much appreciated.  
> Come bug me on tumblr!  
> main blog: one-armed-sad-trash-hobo.tumblr.com  
> writing only blog: sad-trash-writing.tumblr.com


End file.
